Lapdog - On Its Way To Meet Its Maker

[beano500]

Dell (Vostro 1500 - nice big screen) is on its way out.

Oh and it's nearly three years old - it's sort of at the well-its-had-a-good-life-now-do-I-retire-it sort of stage.

I am not brilliant technically, but have managed to work out how to run some diagnostics after it has spent the last few months grinding away slower and slower and now won't finish loading up windoze before it crashes.

The error codes, according to searches on the internet, appear to indicate either Hard Drive failures (2000-0146 depending upon who you believe) or Memory problems (2000-0123).

I can tart around with some new memory or new HD myself - see if does anything - or I could go to someone who knows what they're doing.

So is PC World worth even bothering to step over the threshold?

Should I try a Dell Service Support Partner?

Should I find a local who knows what he's doing?


Or just mysteriously let it fall out of an unexpectedly open window in this unseasonably warm spell we're having and get it over and done with?


(Hertfordshire/Middlesex sort of area btw)

[Smiler.]

Only 3 years old?

If you have all the original disks that came with it, you should be ok.

I have just revived a 7 year old Dell laptop with a replacement HDD, good as new.

The driver loading can be a bit tricky. PM me if you want some help.

[beano500]

Smiler. said:

Only 3 years old?

If you have all the original disks that came with it, you should be ok.

and to those two. And it's throwing up 0F00:0244 - which I gather is classic bad sector. So I think I should have a at a new HDD in it? Not a lot to lose really.

Sorry to answer my own question, but as a Luddite and computer numptie any external input is useful! Ta!

[Simbu]

At that age, i'd be inclined to just reinstall the operating system and do a full reformat on the HDD while i'm at it (assuming you've exhausted the diagnostics options in the operating system). If it still causes problems that would suggest you have a hardware and not a software problem. A full format ought to recover any bad sectors on a disk.

Please don't take it to PC World; they will REAM you for money on what are very simple jobs (replacing RAM or a HDD in a laptop is typically a 2 minute job) and overcharge for the hardware.